I'm working on creating a home network, and I am wondering what the difference is between ISA Ethernet cards and PCI Ethernet Cards. If you could shed some light on the subject i'd be most grateful.
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I'm working on creating a home network, and I am wondering what the difference is between ISA Ethernet cards and PCI Ethernet Cards. If you could shed some light on the subject i'd be most grateful.
ISA is ancient technology. Get PCI, or if you don't want to open up your computer, USB.
do you think it's worth the money to go wireless?
Nah, unless you will add a laptop to the network later.
Wireless networking is too expensive for most people. For laptops, USB file sharing things are faster and easier to use than Wireless Ethernet.
You might not have a choice.
Have you opened your case and checked what kind of slots you have?
Older Motherboards have no PCI slots. Newer ones have no ISA slots. There were transitional boards which had both.
ok, i just went on a 'tour' of my computers. one (my old 486) has isa. my newer one has pci, are the two compatable?
*shudder* A world with no PCI slots. My Dell has no ISA slots. :D
Yes, but the 486 might not be able to run the OS to run the software to run 100Mb ethernet.Quote:
Originally posted by Rh0ads
ok, i just went on a 'tour' of my computers. one (my old 486) has isa. my newer one has pci, are the two compatable?
it's running win 95
They're [erfectly compatible. I have 3 PCs connected together then to a Cable MOdem connection! 2 Are PCI, and 1 is ISA. PCI is just faster hardware. It doesn't really matter for networking, it only matters for stuff like a video card, or a sound card. It wont make much of a difference for a network.
How? :D :D How much memory and free space? It might not even be worth it if you only have two computers and one is so crappy. :p
PCI also is plug-and-pray (no typo there :D) and uses only one IRQ for the entire bus. ISA requires an IRQ per card! :eek:Quote:
Originally posted by VIP3R
They're [erfectly compatible. I have 3 PCs connected together then to a Cable MOdem connection! 2 Are PCI, and 1 is ISA. PCI is just faster hardware. It doesn't really matter for networking, it only matters for stuff like a video card, or a sound card. It wont make much of a difference for a network.
you're just amazing........... even though I somewhat agree with you, but......Quote:
Originally posted by filburt1
PCI also is plug-and-pray (no typo there :D) and uses only one IRQ for the entire bus. ISA requires an IRQ per card! :eek:
PCI cards have there own IRQ's, but there is a chance that they might have to share, PCI allows this better than ISA because of the northbridge. but all in all they have there own IRQ.
you would still have to open it up if you don't have USB.Quote:
Originally posted by filburt1
ISA is ancient technology. Get PCI, or if you don't want to open up your computer, USB.